Cabinet Holds Session Under Water

Can you imagine the House of Representatives – or even better yet – the Senate holding a session underwater?

Right. Neither can I.

But members of the Maldives’ Cabinet recently did just that to prove a point about climate change, reports the Associated Press. (Click here to see an awesome photo of the session.)

President Mohammed Nasheed, the vice president, Cabinet secretary and 11 Cabinet ministers donned scuba gear and descended 20 feet underwater in a stunt designed to highlight the threat of global warming to the Indian Ocean archipelago -- the lowest-lying country in the world. The islands, which average just seven feet above sea level, are at risk of being submerged with the melting of polar ice caps caused by increasing ocean temperatures.

"What we are trying to make people realize is that the Maldives is a frontline state. This is not merely an issue for the Maldives but for the world," Nasheed told the AP.

Once settled at their desks on the ocean floor, the Cabinet members signed a document calling on all countries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Countries around the world are drafting similar documents ahead of the U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen this December where global leaders will sign a new Kyoto Protocol, setting standards for the reduction of greenhouse gases in years to come.

Nasheed has promised to make the Maldives, a collection of 1,192 islands with a total population of 350,000, the world's first carbon-neutral nation within a decade.

Oh, and by the way: while Nasheed was already a certified diver, his other Cabinet members had to get certified just to pull off the stunt. That's what we call walking the walk ... Or rather, diving the dive? Something like that.

Photo courtesy of Chi King.